Report calls U.S. military the glue holding Iraq together
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 E-Mail this story Free Headline Alerts
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military's surge policy in Iraq has not met its politics objectives to end the Al Qaida-aligned insurgency, a report said.
Titled "Understanding the Surge in Iraq and What's Ahead," the Foreign Policy Research Institute report said the surge policy, drafted by dissidents within the U.S. government and military, was based on deployment of the ground units in so-called forward operating bases throughout Sunni areas of Iraq.
"Militarily, or tactically, it did," the report authored by Thomas Ricks, said. "It improved security. But its stated goal was to create a breathing space in which a political breakthrough could occur, and that did not happen."
Ricks, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and special military correspondent for the Washington Post, said the surge included the financing of a Sunni-dominated militia, comprised of fighters who had helped Al Qaida and the former Saddam Hussein regime.
The report said the surge provided no breathing space or resolved any political issues. Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds continued to fight over Iraq's oil resources, particularly in Kirkuk.
"All of these questions have led to violence in the past, and all of them almost certainly are going to lead to violence again," the report said.
The report said the U.S. military marked the glue that has held Iraq together. The institute warned that Iraq would face increasing internal threats amid any U.S. military withdrawal.
"The more troops we withdraw, the more we start withdrawing them from the riskier areas that are less secure or where Iraqi forces are unreliable," the report said. "There are a lot of little Saddams in the Iraqi military. The fewer American eyes on them, the more that Saddamishness will come out."
The report envisioned Iraq engulfed by a civil war in wake of a U.S. military withdrawal. Ricks said such a war could spill from Iraq and spread throughout the Gulf region.
Given such a scenario, the report expected President Barack Obama to maintain up to 50,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely. Ricks said the U.S. president has come to realize "just how bad the trouble he is in."
"He's eventually going to have to settle into a long war with much smaller numbers of forces — 35,000 to 50,000 troops — but probably for several more years of fighting," the report said.